Newsletter: Tough to get data from San Diego’s open data initiative

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by Joe Yerardi | inewsource

The city of San Diego launched its open data initiative to much fanfare in July 2014, promising an era of transparency and robust citizen engagement around massive amounts of information the city collects and stores.

The city hired a chief data officer to oversee the implementation of an ambitious agenda of reviewing all the data under its roof and releasing data sets through a portal on its website. More than a year and a half after the initiative’s launch, city officials have compiled a list of some 2,000 data sets, half of which they consider to be public.

However, despite official requests from inewsource, the city has refused to release the list. What’s more, it is not clear if San Diegans will ever get an accounting of all the data possessed by their city’s government.

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by Leo Castaneda | inewsource

It took 16 years and a binational team of government officials and citizens to identify him, but finally the family of a man on life support in Coronado has some answers.

Although authorities have located the family of a man who had been known as 66 Garage, they’re not releasing details. Enrique Morones, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Border Angels, confirmed that the man is a Mexican national but didn’t say much else.

“We know where he’s from, his name and all that, but that’s all private,” said Morones, who helped assemble the group that sought Garage’s identity.

The search for his identity started when inewsource reported on the case more than a year ago as part of an investigation into the more than 4,000 patients living on life support in California.